My dear William,
It is very good to develop bodhicitta; for that we need to develop great compassion for sentient beings. For example, the perfect savior Maitreya Buddha generated bodhicitta, but Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened before Maitreya Buddha. Why is that? Because Shakyamuni Buddha generated great compassion. If we don’t generate compassion for each and every sentient being then we can’t achieve enlightenment, so we can’t liberate all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and we can’t lead them to enlightenment. Therefore we must generate compassion for all sentient beings.

The reason why the founder Shakyamuni Buddha achieved enlightenment before Maitreya Buddha is because his bodhicitta was much stronger than Maitreya Buddha; therefore Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened first. Therefore we must have compassion and we must serve the sentient beings who are near us—animals and people.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...